BLIZZO

Got the tank all fully stripped for this, the DA sanded. Its in surprisingly good condition, had one tiny little dent and a couple of potted rust spots underneath. These tanks had a rubber red liner product on the inside from new which is still all intact so the inside is mint. I popped it in a bead blasting cabinet and blasted the couple of rust spots underneath and then brushed them with a deoxidiser. I then painted my plastic fenders with a plastic primer then hit them and the tank with some expoxy primer. I bogged the one tiny wee dent and the couple of rust pits then hit it with some more expoxy primer followed by a healthy dose of primer filler. Followed that up with some guide coat so when well dry i can do the messy job of blocking it out all nicely before ill get @EmmyWest to hit it with some 2k alpinewiess white.

Was yarning to a few old school homies about this at swapmeat. Ive had a bit of a poorly detailed with some loose photo spec build threat going on the advrider forum so ill do a bit of a copy and pastearoo to keep those 2 wheeled included folks on here in the loop. I was getting mucked around royally with a local vapor blasters so gave up on them and will be getting the lot done at Kapiti Vapour blasters. Michael Dobson from 2 cats garage in Raumati leant me the blanking plugs. Was meant to have it all done by now but my crash slowed me down. I'm able to potter around with spanners now so back into the resto of this so i don't go stir crazy. Disassembled the engine on the weekend and pretty happy that everything looks really good. Was burning a fair bit of oil on the RH cyl so a refresh is certainly required. I just need to get MD to pop the main bearing carrier off and i can pull the crank out, then plug everything up and drop it to the blasters. I've had a great big box of parts delivered from siebenrock so keen as mustard to get stuck right into the old girl now. there has been a fair bit of time and money chucked at the G/S Restoration Lately. I stripped most of the engine down then cropped the block, gearbox and final drive off at MD's at Two Cats Garage. Michael stripped everything completely apart for me and leant me his set of blanking plugs to use getting everything vapour blasted. Once stripped i took it home and plugged it all up. Now it the block was bunged up more than me after 3 weeks on morphine I dropped everything off to Nick Sparrow at Kapiti Vapour blasting. I didnt know there is so much that goes into vapour blasting but to do it right there is a lot, and Nick knows his stuff! he even blasted the plastic fenders back to bare plastic, it leaves a perfect finish for painting. First thing I did after getting everything back was shuck the already stripped carbs into the ultrasonic cleaner then rebuild them with all new internals. I had the steel re zinc plated, this part of restorations is so satisfying. With all the bits back from vapour blasting, the next thing on the to do list was to paint the black engine accents. A process i've used a few times before, I opted to use Gloss Black Cerakote H series. I will Cerakote the brake caliper, fork legs, engine accent, swing arm / torque tube, handle bars and a few other bits and pieces. I used the gloss black color. It takes a fair bit more prep and a big enough oven to bake it in, but it really is good stuff, harder the powdercoat but thinner than paint, the best of both worlds. Here are the fork lowers and engine bits: Brake Caliper being rebuilt: Forks rebuild with new stanchions, seals and bushes inside. I have some new progressive springs for these also. After stripping all the frame and doing some repair work on the centre stand, engine guards and rear rack it was off to the sand blaster Then home soon after for a coat of 2k epoxy primer Restoring the rims was something i had put off for a while. I got on aliexpress and brought a series of sanding buffs for the bench grinder which made things easier, but i ended up rubbing both of my thumbs to bleeding states with wet and dry sand paper anyway. That and a butt tonne of time on the polishing wheels and polish dremel and they were looking alright. Photo below here is when the rear was done with the rough cut, and the front has been sanded very roughly. I got the rims all sorted and then dropped them off to Craig at Hamco Industries, a local wheel wright here in Rongotea. It ended up costing a bit even with supplying the spokes as he found the front rim was pretty tweaked from some excessive lever use in the past and it wasn't evident until he started truing it, he got that all repaired for me and the rear took a bit of work as he had to make a wee jig to hold the rear riff in his truing stand. I've used Craig a few times now and he's great, i dont have to get angry at spokes. Here is the wheels after ii mounted some new TKC80s (using a rubber mallet) and put the new front brake disc on. next on the list while i wait for the painter for the frame is to prep the fenders and the fuel tank. Luckily the tank is in pretty good condition, one tiny dent and a few rust patches that were forming under the crappy part of the paint. This bike was stolen and recovered. The theifs must have taken to half the tank with a sander before spray painting it, this resulted in a lot of surface rust under the matte black paint. A good sand back, rust treatment and epoxy primer will sort that. The "Good side": After a few rounds of paint stripping, a bit more to go yet, mostly on the seams: I'm thinking for the plastic fenders ill spray them with some plastic primer first them biff some epoxy primer on that. possibly some high build after than to get a nice surface and then the 2k top coat.

Well she's been a few years between haircuts with this old jigger. Finally decided a few months ago to get stuck into it so rolled the bike out of storage and up on to my motorcycle hoist. I figured the easiest thing to do would be break the restoration down into stages for a few reasons, first being getting the costs past the minister of war and finance but also to not burden myself with too much at once. I figured if i can work on "stage 1" which is get the bike back to a restored rolling frame wont take too much money and wont wind up with the thing in a million bits for ages and losing bits and pieces. I started stripping the bike down and making a list of things to order which quickly started adding up. Had a shopping spree on Siebenrock and got new fork stanchions, brake rotor, brake pads, spokes, headings, rubber driveshaft boot, fork seals and a few other bits and bobs, pretty much everything to get it back to a rolling frame. I'm currently tidying up the rims and have a big ole box of bits to drop to the vapor blasters. Im pretty glad to be sorting this thing now as the frame is certainly pretty crusty, its all surface rust but wouldn't take much more to turn to a pitted mess. I'm still pretty sure that I wont powder coat the frame and will do a bit of research to see if i can find an outfit that does baked enamel, if not just a normal enamel out of a gun will probably be the go. Engine out and on the bench, spot the missing bits here, i havn't removed anything other than the front cover. Bike ran fine but certainly wasn't going to have any working lights! Wee bonus I found when pulling it apart, a cool old metal tyre pump inside the frame tube. Does anyone know if this is a genuine BMW pump or just some old bump someone has poked in there back in the day? next task is to keep stripping the frame down, make any repairs needed, then blast and paint. Engine will sit on the bench until the frame is back together then that will get pulled apart, blasted, some minor engine work and go back together. thanks stage 2 i guess. Stage 3 will be the spendy part, paint, decals, seat recover, instrument repair, new rear shock, find a new ignition switch (didn't have one as it was stolen and recovered) and probably put a wedgetail electronic ignition kit in it. At least i have started now!

Just noticed you mentioned it does use danseys pass, just didn’t look like it on the map

Also day 4, should def change the start of that from ranfurly to Kurow. Pansy’s pass from naesby to Kurow would be better than the current route. F people wanted to be hectic (would be a fun challenge) could always try some Over Mt buster / awakino saddle. It’s hard enough on a dirt bike and support vehicles can come but would be a notable achievement that’s for sure.

Man I’m so keen for this! Have ridden most of these roads either on the dusty butt or on other SI trips on the Africa twin, will be amazing on small bikes. I’ve just picked up an old ct125 that will be perfect for this. ive got a big work trailer that has bike chocks, had 5 big bikes on it plus 2 on the Ute for dusty so the trailer would likely fit 7-8 small bikes plus 2-3 on the back of the Ute. If people could get bikes to palmy then I can be freight and we can just split ferry costs, should work out cheap, can take 3 people also of keen for the drive. I’d just smash palmy to fairlie in a day, I’ve done it on a drz400 so I’m sure a v6 ranger will be much more comfortable

She's been a while since ive updated this. Have been a bit busy playing with bikes that arent exactly oldschool. A few things have been added to the stable since the last post and a few sold off. The Dommie went to a good home and old mate was super stoked. I purchased this choice old CT125 thats currently in Hogans shed that i need to get further north if anyone is heading up with a ute or trailer. Even to blenhiem will do. I was meant to get it when down for the Dusty Butt, ferry cancellation ruined that. I grabbed an XR100 of @Chris.QCR which is super rad. few wee jobs to get it going and moving and used it at garlic masters which was hella fun. Last winter I added a new DRZ400 to the stable after thinking it was going to be my dream small adventure bike, which it kind of was at the time. Dropped about 5k doing heaps of mods to make it adventure friendly and used it on a 600km "one big day" adv ride in raglan and then appx 2500kms in 4 days for the Dusty Butt down south. Went great and I should be really happy with it but I rode a KTM exc for an hour or so on the ride, and was kinda converted. Oil change frequency goes out of your mind when something can slap a full ear to ear smile like the KTM did, and that was an older model 2013, the new ones are even better, so, when i got home the DRZ got cleaned and slapped onto trademe and I payed AFC motorcycles a vist and came home with this. 2023 500 exc-f. Have ordered bunch of bits to adventurise it, larger acerbis tank, seat concepts seat, fastway footpegs, new plastics to keep the OEM ones fresh, steel sprocket, XRC dampened bar mounts, stiffer fork and shock springs which i already biffed in. Should make a pretty sweet technical trail adventure rig. Already planning out some sweet west coast mining exploration routes which should be sweet.

fizzing for this now! If anyone needs a ride up from southern north island hit me up, imm be heading up thursday arvo / after work maybe. Have space on ute for another bike. Rogeeee

Hey mate, so ive not had much luck up here finding anyone that does baked enamel, what is the name of the outfit you use in chch?

What’s the meetup point / time this morning? Te araroa?

Yea I’ll enter tonight, was on the fence due to some family sickness. now I face a bike dilemma, today was the first chance I’ve had to do some prep, and the inlet to carb manifold on the trombone is crumbled, so it’s out, unless anyone has one handy they can bring to the start. my CT is fucked and in bits. Only running things in the shed are kids bikes and my drz400, so I might have to be a punishing medium bike barry if I’m still to come Soz

if anyone else would like to offload some accomodations, i too would be interested, or ill steal some floor space somewhere

yea to be fair i havnt done the coastal rode for a few years so i could be keen for something different. will save the trombone falling to bits on corrugations anyway, it always seems to fall to bits when i use it on rough gravel

Yea ive done all over 5 years so why the fuck not. Not sure what bike to bring along, my back tells me i should bring the CT185 again, but I have taken a different bike every eastcape, 2017 - CT110 2018 - ST90 2019 - GP125 2020 - CT185 2021 - XR250 2022 - ??????? The trombone was the first bike I built, and its never done an eastcape, so parts of me say I should take it. Its currently still also broken from garlic masters. Maybe its time for an ass punishing on that Also who here has Cardo's? keen as for some quality shit yarns during the ride this year

yea thats always gunna be the way, you could do any grade 5 trail in NZ on a CT110. You cant rag on big adventure bikes for having a hard time of technical trails, its not what they are designed to do. 200KG+ adventure bikes are designed to eat tarmac miles easily and effortlessly, be fine on travel roads and occasionally do some grade 3-4 type trails, albeit slowly and difficulty, they are not made for technical terrain. I think people see Chris Birch sending his 1290 on grade 5 tracks and think its possible, but we are not chris birch. The the moped riders had come across people on lightweight adv bikes (KTM 500EXC, 501, DRZ400 etc) they would have been showered in stones and seen how much fun the riders were having. All bikes are a compromise, a CT110 can easily do offroad yes but its doesnt give you the adrenaline rush of something with power, it will also suck if you want to do long road sections linking trails. TL:DR - not one bike does everything well, so you need to be like me a fill your shed with 8+ bikes so you have a range to choose from. A freinds howty towty mum recently asked my why on earth i have so many motorcycles when you can only ride one at a time. I replied with "why do you have a closet full of shoes Cheryl, you only have 2 feet"